December 28, 2015

December 28, 2015

Hey everyone!

 This week was great! The entire week me and my companion whenever we would drive he had on a Santa hat and beard and I would video with the iPad. He would just wave to everyone and their reactions were so funny! We got some really good reactions ha-ha! It was so much fun. 

         So on Christmas Eve we drove around with our ward mission leader Brother Rossel to about 30 people's homes. We literally did this all day long. We had cookies and fruit snacks that we gave to everybody we stopped by. We stopped by all of our investigators and also some less active members in the ward. By the end of the night we still had a ton of cookies and fruit snacks left over so he gave them to us. Now we already have way to many cookies and snacks in our apartment, so we just gave them to the other elders ha-ha. We have been eating so much junk the past like 2-3 weeks. Everybody just keeps giving us candy and chocolates and junk. Its so bad ha-ha. I swear I've gained like 10 pounds already. 

         Christmas day was the best! We had to go shopping for one of our investigators that we were going over to her house later in the day for dinner. She needed like everything and put it off till the last minute. So we told her we would help her out. We went out and seriously couldn't find any place open. We had to go to 7-Eleven and Walgreens to find what we needed. Surprisingly we found most of the stuff she needed. So we brought all that to her then went to the church and Skyped our families! Man it was so good to see all of you! That was the highlight of my Christmas. It was pretty different being here for Christmas, especially because it was 85 degrees and there are palm trees all around ha-ha. I really did love Skyping though. It was really good to hear from you guys and it was refreshing. I only have three more Skype calls left! It’s pretty crazy I've already made it this far. The time is starting to go by a lot faster as I'm getting more into the work. We had 4 dinner appointments on Christmas; it was like a repeat of Thanksgiving ha-ha. This time I was smart though and didn't eat too much at each place so I wouldn't be too full for the next place we went to. 

          We had something really cool happen on Saturday. It was about 7:30 at night and we didn't have any other plans so we said a prayer and decided to do some street contacting even though it was late. We went to this street that we felt was good and just started walking. We ran into this guy and offered to say a prayer with him. He said yes, but then quickly changed his mind and didn't want to talk to us. We walked around the block and didn't see a single person. I had a really strong impression to go back and talk to that guy. So we started to go back but then realized we were heading down the wrong street. We turned around and almost immediately saw two gentleman walk out of their garage. We started talking to them and had a really powerful discussion on the restoration, I felt the spirit and I know they did too. We said a prayer with them and set up a return appointment. We did go back to the other guy but he was no longer there. It was so cool to see how the spirit really guided us to those guys. It really strengthened my testimony about how we must always follow those promptings we get from the spirit. No matter what it is. We have no idea what kind of effect it is going to have. 

          Well I believe that is all for this week. Thank you everyone again for all of the letters and many packages. I love you all!! 

Elder Hudson

December 21st 2015 letter

Hello,

So last week was a pretty great week! On Tuesday we all got together as a whole mission and had a Christmas party on the beach! We went to the Fort Desoto beach. It was about a two hour drive from where we live, but it is a really nice beach. We got there around 12 and stayed until 6. We had an ugly sweater contest and there was some pretty good ones ha-ha. I got voted out the first round, I guess I'm not very good at picking out an ugly sweater ha-ha! After that we had a sand castle building contest between zones and we totally won. I'll send pictures, it was so big! We had dinner there and a small devotional then we went home. I really liked the beach though; I'm definitely going back someday. 

         So the other elders that had to move in with us finally moved out. It was kinda fun having them around, but I'm glad they're gone ha-ha. We were just so cramped in there. We have a lot of room now though. We still have so much food from people in the ward. We are set for at least another two weeks. Everyone keeps giving us gift cards to McDonalds too ha-ha its weird. Its like everyone thinks the missionaries are poor. 

         So we have 4 baptismal dates set for January. They are all really solid and are excited to take the step of faith to be baptized. Its amazing what the spirit can do. I've seen it touch the hearts of the people we teach and you can tell when they start to feel it. We were talking to this guy yesterday on his porch and we asked him if he would take a Book of Mormon and read it, but he said no in the beginning. After we had got done talking about the restoration with him and bearing testimony of it he actually took the Book of Mormon and said he would start to read a little bit of it. It’s just been manifested to me that if we just do our part and invite them and bear testimony then the Lord will take care of the rest. That’s so important to remember as a missionary. 

        Other than that not a whole lot of really exciting things have happened this week. We have knocked a lot of doors and talked to a lot of people. It’s sometimes hard to remember all of the people and what we taught and everything. That’s why we write it down every night I guess ha-ha. It’s really weird being in

December with no snow; it doesn't feel like Christmas at all ha-ha. I still love the season though and people seem to be more receptive cause its Christmas time. Thank you to all who have sent me letters and packages,

 I love you guys!!!! 

December 14, 2015.

Hey everyone!!

 First off I just want to say thank you to everyone for writing me emails. It’s so good to read them and hear about what’s going on with all of you! So keep on writing. Anyways we got a lot done this week. On Tuesday we had our district meeting like we do every Tuesday at 10 am then we went to an overnight training thing in Tampa. It’s called METRO. That probably stands for something but I don't know what ha-ha. We got to the training at like 2 and we sat in a meeting for about 2 hours being trained on several things. Then after that we went to USF campus which is right next to the church building that we were in to practice what we just learned. They gave us about an hour to contact people. In that amount of time me and my companion taught 12 lessons and gave away 3 Book of Mormons. There was so many people to talk to there it was crazy. Like we would get done talking to one person, turn around, and start talking to another ha-ha. It was a lot of fun though.  The next day we basically did the same thing, but with different training. This time we had about 2 hours though. We taught a lot of lessons that day. 

           After we got back to our area that day we had a little bit of time to go out and contact some referrals that we had gotten. Three of them were really solid and we taught them and set up return appointments. Then the last one was a media referral. They had requested a Book of Mormon online so we were going to deliver it to them. The address took us to some weird Baptist church that looked like it was run down. So either that person was messing with us or put down the wrong address ha-ha. I thought it was pretty funny. 

           We have an investigator named Michelle that we had a date for her to be baptized on the 26th but we have to reset the date for January. She is still pretty solid though. She seems to like us so that’s good. We had to help some guy in our ward that is less active move the other day. He got a notice on his door that said he had to be out of the house within 24 hours. So he was getting evicted for the 4th time. He's not very smart and he has a wife and a baby with another baby on the way. Basically we got there at 7:30 in the morning, had to wait till 9 when he brought the U-haul over, then just shoved everything in. We just put all of their stuff in that one U-haul. It took us about 4 hours with 6 of us there. Their house smelled so bad though, it was horrible, but service is always good. 

           I've been out for a month! Time has gone by fast! I guess that’s what happens when you’re a missionary. So the ward mission leaders name is Brother Russel. He always comes with us when we teach Michelle because we have to have another man in the house with us. He falls asleep almost every time though ha-ha it’s so funny, but this week something really funny happened. We were teaching her and he was starting to fall asleep. He had a cup full of water in his hand though resting on his knee. Then all of a sudden we just hear the cup fall and he jumped up super fast. He had spilled the whole cup of water on his pants ha-ha!  It was so funny we all laughed so hard. Michelle has been making fun of him for it every day since ha-ha. 

          On Sunday we got to ordain Miguel, a recent convert that we have been teaching, to the Aronic Priesthood. It was really cool. He was very happy and realized how important that was for him. He will get to pass the sacrament next week. I'm really happy for him. He is probably my favorite person that we teach. That’s pretty much all that happened this week. I've definitely had hard times being out here, but I've also had a lot of good times. The blessings outweigh the bad so it makes it all worth it to see the change in other people when they come to know the truth of this Gospel. 

  Love, Elder Hudson                                                                                                

December 7th, 2015

Hey everyone! So this week has been pretty good! I'll just start with Monday night. Our P-day doesn't last all day, it lasts until 6 pm. So after that we went to the Gonzales home. They were teaching them for a while before I got there and they have really been progressing fast. We set a baptism date for the whole family, January 2nd. I'm really excited for them and it’s been really cool to see people make commitments and come to know the truthfulness of this Gospel. On Tuesday we biked a ton. We biked almost 40 miles that day. We only have the car half of the time. I thought I was in shape, but I quickly found out that I really wasn't. We did get a lot done that day though. We had zone conference on Wednesday. It’s where we all get together as a zone and do some training. It lasted about 6 hours, so boring ha-ha, but good training. 

               After that I went on an exchange with Elder Ohlau. An exchange is when you pretty much trade companions for a day. So I went to Gulf port with Elder Ohlau. He is an interesting guy. He is like 24 and half bald ha-ha, but he is a really good missionary. He has about 6 months left of his mission. He is pretty goofy, but in a good way. Oh and we also were permitted to start listening to Christmas music! We are all so excited ha-ha. We went and bought a bunch of CD's to listen to. We got Michael Buble, Frozen, Pentatonix, and some others. It’s been fun, we sing in the car all the time ha-ha. Anyways Gulf Port is really sketchy, like really sketchy. We went contacting and I was scared for my life ha-ha! It was the most ghetto place I have ever been. We did talk to a few people that were willing to listen to our message and we showed them the new Christmas video the church just put out, by the way if you haven't watched it yet do it because its really good! That’s the main thing we have been using when talking to people. It has worked pretty well. So luckily we didn't get shot and made it home safely. 

             The next day I went back to my area, thank goodness. We went to Miguel's house that night and he prepared dinner for us like always ha-ha and we taught him more about the Aronic priesthood. He will be receiving it next Sunday. He seems really excited for it. He is my favorite person here ha-ha. He is just so nice and really wants to live the gospel the best he can. He is really excited to go to the temple too and do the work for his ancestors. We had a ward Christmas party on Friday and that was pretty good, just because there was a ton of treats there ha-ha. We watched some old movie about Christmas and the youth sang some songs. We have had a lot of our appointments fall through and we have had to drop quite a few of our investigators. So we are hoping to find a lot of people next week to teach. We have an investigator named Michelle who will be baptized on the 26th hopefully. It depends if she is in the hospital or not. She has a lot of health issues, but she is always laughing and making us feel welcome. I always love going over to teach her. 

              We had a baptism on Saturday. His name is Ryan and the sisters that were here before us were teaching him. So now we get to start teaching him the lessons again. He seems like a cool guy. I love Sundays a lot more now, especially sacrament. Its....refreshing I guess. I think Bishop May is gonna have me give a talk next Sunday so I'll let you all know how it goes. Oh and I've started to say y'all, not on purpose, I just catch myself sometimes ha-ha. Well that's all for this week. Thank you all for your letters and your prayers! They keep me going. Again, send me pictures of you guys! I love you all so much! 

       Love, Elder Hudson

November 30th letter and pictures

I'm here!! So 6 of us left the mtc on Tuesday morning at 3:30 AM. We all went to bed around one so we only got like 2 and a half hours of sleep haha. I was so tired that whole day. We got to the airport at around 4:30. After we got all checked in we had about an hour before our flight was ready to board. So we walked around and got some breakfast. Flying was pretty fun actually! I don't remember when we flew to California because that was so long ago. It was about a 4 hour flight to Atlanta, then we had to board another flight right after that to go to Tampa. That flight was about an hour long. When we finally arrived there was two elders waiting for us. They then led us to our mission President and his wife. They were really nice! After we got our luggage and everything we went to the mission Presidents house. There we ate dinner and talked about a lot of things. I don't really remember because I was so tired haha. After that we went and stayed in a hotel for the night and Elder Morris gave me a hair cut. My hair is so short now! Haha I guess hats just how it goes. The next morning we woke up at 5:30and worked our for an hour. We do that every single morning here in the Tampa mission. except at 6. Then we went to the church and got our companions and our areas. I'm serving in the Hudson area (mission president did that on purpose) and my companion is Elder Nilson. He is a really hard working guy. He is a really awesome missionary and is a fun companion. We got all our stuff to the apartment and then went strait to work. 

            We first went to Miguel's house. He was baptized about a week ago. I guess my companion and him had planned a prank on me. My companion has been in this area for about 4 months. So we get there and Miguel asked if we wanted something to drink, we said okay. Then he comes out with two "beers" and says "beer!" I was so confused. Then all of a sudden my companion starts chugging it! I was like dude what are you doing?! And he's like, "take a drink or you'll offend him." Then I looked at the bottle and it said "Non alcoholic drink." then i caught on. We all laughed for a long time about that. Then we went tracting. we do a lot of that here. The very first house we went to my companion told me to take the lead. I was so nervous, but i said okay. I knocked and an old man answered the door. I asked him if he would like to hear a short message about Jesus Christ, then he slammed the door in my face haha. So my first door wasn't that successful. We knocked doors the rest of the night and got a couple of return appointments, but while we were knocking doors some cops pulled up and started asking us questions. we told them who we were and what we were doing. I guess someone called the cops on us haha! It was kinda funny. Not a day goes by out here that i don't hear at least two or three sirens. Its so much different than Utah. Then that night a set of Elders that live in our complex got threatened by someone. It was their downstairs neighbor. He pounded on the door and said if they didn't keep it down (they were in bed already btw, the guy was drunk) that he would kill them. so they live with us now haha. its really cramped but we manage. 

           I've met a lot of people here already. We keep ourselves busy and tract a lot, but i like it. I like being a missionary. One night we knocked on this lady's door and she said she wasn't interested and closed the door. We started to walk away, but I felt like we needed to go back. so we went and knocked again and talked to her for a bit and set up a return appointment with her, she seemed really sad and kinda teared up when we were talking to her. Its so amazing being a missionary. I love getting those promptings from the spirit and having something amazing happen. I love being a missionary, but its hard work. I am so tired, every day, but i know that if i just keep trying my hardest i will be blessed and I will be able to bless others through this gospel. I could tell you all so much more but I cant write a novel haha. so until next week. I love you all so much. Thank you for the emails and letters, and i would love it so much if you all would send me pictures too. I want to see your faces! haha. here is my apartment address if anyone needs it. 

love, Elder Hudson

7732 Isabella drive
apartment G

Port Richey, Florida

34668

Elder Hudson arrived in Tampa, Florida Tuesday, November 24th, 2015.  His companion is Elder Nilsen, they are serving in Hudson, Florida (Funny coincident)

Elder Hudson and Elder Nilsen, his trainer

President and Sister Cusick with new missionaries and the Tampa airport.

Monday, November 23, 2015

Well I don't really know how to start this so I guess I'll just jump right in. This past week has been so much better. I think I can navigate around the campus without getting lost now ha ha. My first week I kind of had a hard time with that. We got a lot of new elders and sisters on Wednesday. I got to see McKay (my friend from my home ward) and my other friend Josh when they got here on Wednesday. It was really good to see him and talk about how we are doing. I’ve seen him like every day at either lunch or dinner. I also saw him on Sunday when we went on the temple walk. We do that every Sunday here. We took some pictures together, but I’ll upload them later tonight because I don’t have my camera with me right now. And yes mom, I got your package, we cracked open the nachos last night ha ha. The new elders that we got in our zone on Wednesday are pretty cool. We like to joke around with them so we told them when they got here that there was stuff hidden in the vents from the last people. They looked for a while but they didn’t find anything ha ha. I’ve grown really close to the guys here and it’s going to be hard to leave them tomorrow. We all agreed that we are going to hang out after we get back home. So I’m looking forward to that. My companion and I have been doing pretty good with our investigators. We have one named Carl and the lessons have been going really well. We got him to commit to baptism and we just had our last lesson with him today. The next missionaries will continue to teach him. Another one of our investigators name is Josh, he has been really hard to teach. He doesn’t seem very receptive to our message, but we worked really hard to have him gain faith in the restored gospel. We had our last appointment with him on Saturday. We got him to commit to read the Book of Mormon and that’s as far as we got with him. It’s been such a good experience teaching them. I’ve learned and grown a lot from it. My testimony has grown so much stronger since I’ve been here it’s crazy. I’m really excited to leave for the field tomorrow and I know it’s going to be a big change but I have faith that I will be able to get through it. I know that I can turn to the Lord in time of need. Sorry to all those that have sent me emails and I haven’t gotten back to them. I don’t have much time to email here but will in the field, so I promise I will write you all back, don’t worry. 

Love, Elder Hudson

Hey everyone! So the MTC  so far has been really amazing and I learn a lot here, but it also feels like a prison sometimes haha.  We have a really strict schedule here  from 6:30 to 9:30 we are either in class or studying or at some devotional. It’s been really tiring. There is just so much to take in and so much to learn and get used to it feels overwhelming a lot of the time. Usually we are in class for about 4 hours then we have lunch then we have another 3 hours of class then we study for an hour, then we have dinner, then we come back to class to study some more haha.  We do a lot of studying here. It was kind of rough the first couple of days here but once I started to get closer to my companion and the people in my room and zone it became easier. We all have grown really close to each other and we are great friends. We joke around all the time and just try to have fun. Sometimes we have a little too much fun though haha. Like today we had a "bowling" tournament in our residence hall because today is p-day. We used a hacky sack for the bowling ball and a bunch of soda cans from our shrine for the pins. I guess I should explain what the shrine is haha. So the elders that got there a week before us handed it down to our room. It’s been handed down for a long time in our residence I guess haha.  It’s just a ton of cactus cooler soda cans that we stack into a closet in our room. and all the elders in our zone keep contributing to it. so every time anyone drinks a cactus cooler then put it in with the shrine. When we leave we will hand it down to the next guys. It’s kinda fun haha.

           So we have the opportunity to teach investigators while we are here in the MTC. It’s been a really good experience to teach actual people that want to hear more about the gospel. I think I’ve learned more from doing that than anything else. Yesterday me and another elder in my dorm saw a lady in one of our buildings with a gold name tag, that means they are investigators and they just come here to have the missionaries teach them. So we started taking to her and set up an appointment for today. So today we talked with her and got to know her. Her name is Elsie. She is actually from Tampa but she moved down her with her husband because he is going to BYU. She was really receptive and I feel like she felt the spirit while we were teaching her. We set up another appointment for tomorrow and she seems really interested. It made me feel a bit better about myself as a missionary. We went to the temple this morning and it was kind of different going as a missionary. We have a separate place to get our clothes and a different changing room it was a really good experience and it was really nice to get away for a couple hours. I don’t have much more time but I will be leaving next week on Tuesday at 3:30 in the morning. So that should be fun. haha not. I think I will be able to write on Monday. So until then, I love all of you and thank you for your prayers and support.

love, Elder Hudson

This is a letter Connor sent to me but I though I would share. : ) enjoy

well  guess we get to write our mothers today! but it is supposed to be brief. I just wanted you to know that I am loving the  MTC! the first day was really overwhelming and there was a lot to take in. my companion is Elder Krebs. he is awesome! i can tell he has a real desire to serve the lord. we room with just one other set of missionaries. they are so much fun to be around but also know how to bring the spirit when we need to. we have a lot of fun here together haha. I'm doing good and really learning a lot! I've learned so much already. I think I will write again on Tuesday. so I will write you then. 

love, Elder Hudson

also for packages anyone wants to send me while I'm in the MTC here is the address. 

Elder Connor Shayne Hudson
NOV24  FL-TAM
2005 N 900 E Unit 130
Provo UT 84602